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Just finished one of the contenders for this year's Canada Reads. Candy Palmater will be defending The Break during the week of March 27 – 30 when five celebrities battle out the question, "What is the one book Canadians need now?" Here's my prediction…although I have only read one of the other five contenders, I started three of the others and found them hard to get into. The Break is compelling and puts indigenous women and their issues in the spotlight so I not only think it will win, but that it deserves to win.
The novel begins with a young mother witnessing a violent crime on a barren cold "break" in the city…we've all seen it, a long empty swath slicing through forest or subdivisions with nothing more than robotic looking hydro towers holding up electrical wires for as far as the eye can see. The attack in 'the break' becomes the focal point of the novel with everything else connected to it.
This Métis author, in her first novel, forges a very real look at indigenous people struggling to integrate into urban centres while still having a strong relationship to the land. The author creates empathy for the indigenous women but equally helps the reader get beyond various stereotypes, to see that the white police officer who appears jaded is not a bad man (albeit oblivious to his own racism), he's just been doing a hard job for a very long time. And the homeless juvenile delinquent has been abandoned herself and therefore lashes out–she is living in the winter of Winnipeg but also in the winter of her soul. A young indigenous mother marries a white guy and moves into a better neighbourhood believing it will bring her and her children safety, when all it brings is alienation and self-doubt. "Vermette offers us a dazzling portrayal of the patchwork quilt of pain and trauma that women inherit, of the big and small half-stories that make up a life." (Globe and Mail)
It is a story of brokenness but also of amazing strength and resilience, the importance of family, and how to break out of old patterns of understanding or behaviour. There is such beauty and such rift in this very complicated community in North Winnipeg where the author grew up. Her ability to capture such a comprehensive snapshot of Canada from various perspectives makes it my strong choice to win Canada Reads 2017.
Check out a CBC interview with the author, which is definitely worth a visit. Just click on this link: How Katherena Vermette turned a terrible vision into a visionary debut novel


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NIKI and Etihad Airways: new partnership
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, welcomed the arrival of its codeshare partner NIKI's inaugural flight from Vienna to Abu Dhabi this evening, with the new service of
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, welcomed the arrival of its codeshare partner NIKI's inaugural flight from Vienna to Abu Dhabi this evening, with the new service offering a direct connection between the UAE and Austria's capital cities for the first time.
The daily service is operated using a two-class Airbus A320 aircraft with 12 Business Class and 132 Economy Class seats. Etihad Airways has placed its 'EY' code on the service as part of a codeshare agreement with NIKI, and connects the flights with leading destinations across its network in the Middle East, Africa, Indian subcontinent, North and South Asia, and Australia.
A number of events were held at Abu Dhabi International Airport to celebrate the new service, including a traditional water canon salute and ribbon-cutting ceremony, attended by NIKI Managing Director Christian Lesjak, Etihad Airways Senior Vice President Global Sales James Mueller, and Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) Chief Operations Officer Ahmed Al Haddabi.
NIKI is the seventh airline to enroll onto the Etihad Partners program, alongside airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, India's Jet Airways, Darwin Airline, and Etihad Airways. The program, launched in October 2014, differs from legacy airline alliances by offering benefits beyond pure commercial cooperation, including network and frequent flyer alignment.
In addition, partners will benefit from economies of scale and operational synergies, such as centres of excellence, shared sales teams in certain destinations, joint procurement of services and supplies, and shared pilot and crew training at Etihad Airways' Abu Dhabi facilities.
James Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways, said: "We congratulate NIKI on the start of its Vienna to Abu Dhabi service today. This is the airline's first long-haul route and also marks the debut of its impressive new business class offering. In addition, it is important as a codeshare route that allows Etihad Airways to provide direct access for the first time between Abu Dhabi and Vienna, a leading European economic, political and cultural centre, and connect the route with a range of other destinations across our extensive global network."

subset: commoncrawl


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If you're on Twitter, we're sure you've noticed how much people love using the social media tool to insult people, especially celebrities.
Jimmy Kimmel's new "Celebrities Read Mean Tweets" video segment gathers those insults and packages them together to illustrate the fact that words can hurt. Although, rather than getting upset, some stars hit these tweeters with some of the most hilarious comebacks.
Sofia Vergara recently joined other celebs in reading one of the mean tweets sent out about her. And Vergara's response was in a word....priceless!
Watch "Celebrities Read Mean Tweets #7" below:


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One of the three Wolf Camera stores shut down earlier this year as part of parent company Ritz Camera's liquidation has reopened under new management.
C&A Marketing Inc. bought some of the Ritz brands, including Wolf Camera, during the final phases of Ritz's bankruptcy proceedings. The Birkdale Village store is one of 18 bricks-and-mortar stores that C&A is bringing back.
The company is also operating the RitzPix online imaging service, with prints, photo books, and other services on order. C&A is also continuing existing customer loyalty programs as an added incentive to Ritz and Wolf customers.
"We chose these eighteen stores to re-open because they are in key markets across the country that need a personal, knowledgeable photo speciality shop, which also serve as an integral part of their communities. Even though the photo industry continues to transform, we are dedicated to bringing a new, sustainable business model to the Ritz Camera stores and their customers," said C&A president Harry Klein, in a statement.
"Our strategic investment focuses on integrating our online sites with our retail locations, and to offer a one-stop photography resource where customers can purchase premium products and popular imaging gifts," said Klein.
The revived stores are staffed with their original employees, C&A said. Here's more on their plans for the Ritz, and Wolf, camera store brands: "The stores and websites will have fresh, current, and comprehensive inventory, and will continue to offer the full range of quality imaging products and services that consumers have come to expect of the Ritz Camera brand. In addition to the stores, C&A will grow the online imaging speciality business, RitzPix.com, which provides high standard photography offerings including film processing, image restorations, premium gifts including custom book printing, and more at the retail locations and a full-service imaging lab."
C&A has some experience with faded imaging brands. The company is the official licensee for many Polaroid products. As the company notes: "C&A already plays a significant role in the resurgence of one iconic American imaging brand."
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Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Wolf Camera at Birkdale Village reopens
One of the three Wolf Camera stores shut down earlier this year as part of parent company Ritz Camera's liquidation has reopened under new management.
12 comments:
- Anonymous said...
You're in a dying industry. Please, just say "Uncle," close up shop and move on.
Am I speaking about Ritz Camera or the Charlotte Observer? $10 per month for what? AP news? Southern Bias perspective?
As for Ritz, the writing was on the wall and they were overpriced. They never changed with the times.
Both Ritz and the Charlotte Observer are dinosaurs, and we all know that dinosaurs are extinct.
- November 20, 2012 at 7:37 AM
- Anonymous said...
Yea!!! The Birkdale store employees are terrific - glad to see the reopening.
- November 20, 2012 at 8:16 AM
- Davidson said...
Great news! And it is terrific they are bringing back the employees. They are the nicest people and experts in what they do.
- November 20, 2012 at 8:55 AM
- Anonymous said...
Southern bias? Sweetie, you do realize you're in the South, riiight? If you want your news to be New York centric, how bout you head on up there dahlin? Run along now and take a coupla friends with ya. How niiiice!!!
- November 20, 2012 at 9:27 AM
- WashuOtaku said...
Makes sense, it's a respected brand and though brick and mortar photography stores are less needed today, there will always be people that need to talk to an expert and that builds loyalty. They don't need many stores to function, just one or two per big city; people looking for more about photography will search them out.
- November 20, 2012 at 9:32 AM
- Anonymous said...
Unless you can transfer my Mom and Dad's old slides to DVD you can close back up for all I care.
- November 20, 2012 at 9:49 AM
- Anonymous said...
The place was over priced when it was Wolf, and it's over priced now. Have they not figured out that Camera's are digital now? We can take pictures, upload them and print from home with the same quality?
- November 20, 2012 at 10:27 AM
- Anonymous said...
Ely, what does Anonymous 9:27AM's post have to do with your article? I thought the reason for your moderating is for you NOT to have posts on here that fail to address the subject content?
This is about Ritz Camera and how it is still alive, just barely, is it not? Is the article not about how consumers can still go to Birkdale Village to have quality prints developed at Ritz over the Holiday Season?
Then why include Anonymous 9:27Am's post, when all it deals with is making sure that to note that she is a southerner? Please, if you are going to moderate, then do it.
I, for one, am glad Ritz Camera is still around. I have bought cameras, lenses, developed film, and have gone there for just sheer education countless times. So sad times have changed and another Company has been so decimated.
- November 20, 2012 at 11:54 AM
- Anonymous said...
For the people who think you can "print them at home" and have the same quailty you must not have very high standards. I've seen the pictures my mother is so proud of becasue she printed them and it makes me cring.
- November 20, 2012 at 11:58 AM
- Anonymous said...
Use Costco for photo processing. Its far cheaper, and faster too. I was turned away at Ritz camera because it was 10 minutes before closing time, and after I realized they charge 5x as much for the same thing as Costco, I won't go back anyway. BTW, Walgreens and CVS are just as expensive for photo processing, but convenient indeed since they are on every other corner in town.
- November 20, 2012 at 1:10 PM
- Ely Portillo said...
Hi Anon 11:54. I can understand why you're a bit confused, so I'll try to clarify. The moderation was mostly to cut down on the amount of straight-up racist comments, often with racial language, that were cropping up. For some reason, they were especially focused on supermarket stories. So, I've been able to cut those down quite a bit. Beyond that, I try to let as many comments as I can go up.
- November 20, 2012 at 5:25 PM
- Unknown said...
The imaging industry has indeed evolved to an entirely different phase of a digital era. Camera stores are bound to be affected by this drastic change but with proper marketing strategies, they will be able to still retain their old customers. They can also introduce packages that include traditional modes of imaging together with digital imaging to rope customers in with features like digital storage of photos, touch-up of old photos and many more.
- July 19, 2013 at 5:24 AM


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- the latest result, very smooth on the sides, the important point here is do not line paper on the side of the cake pan.
- and this time it didn't cracked much, because I use higher pan for water bath.. maybe this was the reason..
Thanks to Happy Home Baking for sharing this rich chocolate brownie recipe.
Do enjoy baking !!!


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Washington State Bishops Fight for Marriage and the Common Good
Their letter comes in response to legislation under consideration in the state that would grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (EWTN News/CNA)—Proposed same-sex "marriage" legislation in Washington state would add to "the forces already undermining family life today," the state's Catholic bishops warned.
In a January 2012 statement, the bishops stressed that the "stability of society depends on the stability of family life, in which a man and a woman conceive and nurture new life."
They noted in their letter, titled "Marriage and the Common Good," that the civil recognition of marriage as between one man and one woman has given "countless generations of children the incomparable benefit of a loving mother and father committed to one another in a lifelong union."
On Jan. 13, 23 senators, including two Republicans, introduced legislation that would grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Catholic Democrat, had requested the bill, which will require 25 votes to pass the state Senate.
In response to the move, the bishops explained that when defining marriage in terms of the relationship between a man and a woman and its "important role" in guaranteeing future generations the state recognizes the "irreplaceable contribution" married couples make to society.
Changing the definition of marriage means there are no special laws to support and recognize this contribution, they said.
Marriage not only creates a bond through a personal relationship, but allows the potential "of a man and woman to conceive and nurture new life, thus contributing to the continuation of the human race."
The bill's chief sponsor, state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, however, criticized the bishops in remarks to The Associated Press.
"My first reaction, as a practicing Catholic, is that this is very hurtful," said Murray, who is currently in a 20-year same-sex relationship.
Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, said that he expects thousands of people to show up at the bill's first public hearing on Jan. 23 to show their opposition.
But he sided with the bishops, saying that the "idea that there is no difference between a heterosexual relationship and a homosexual relationship and that the law should recognize no difference assumes there is no difference between men and women."
"This would be the state taking a position and saying, 'We will no longer encourage arrangements that will give children both a mother and father,'" he added.
Washington state passed a domestic-partnership law in 2007, and there are about 19,000 registered domestic partners in the state today.
In their statement, the bishops called on local Catholics to contact state legislators and urge them to keep marriage defined as between one man and one woman.


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I Know You Have a Little Life in You Yet: Ending Mass Effect 3
By Lesley | March 26, 2012
I get a lot of comments about my writing making people cry. It used to happen here periodically, and it now happens on xoJane with an impressive regularity.
I'm never sure how to respond. Though I can honestly say that I never set out with that purpose in mind, I take this as the highest possible compliment to my work. I take it as such because it means I have made someone feel something, and is there anything so immediately resonant of the importance of human connection than being made to feel something — to the extent of being moved to tears — by another person? That is communication working. That is my invisible hand reaching out through the ether and touching yours. That is all of us feeling less alone.
I am not a frequent crier myself. It takes something enormous to make me cry, although once it happens the effect will often last for a day or two. The last thing I cried about with such untempered sorrow was the loss of Oberon, my excellent kitty soulmate of almost 14 years, and I cried over that for almost a week, with breaks for getting work done and leaving the house. The most recent thing, as of this weekend? A video game.
Some of you are aware of my deep deep love for the Mass Effect series of video games. My obsession began when I watched my husband play the first installment in 2007, and has not flagged since. It comprises an epic (both the noun and the adjective) hero's journey, a monomyth set in the distant future where humans have extended themselves across the galaxy and found that even a universe filled with curious aliens is still damn familiar, riddled with conflict and war, some brand new, some thousands of years old.
It is a story told in millions of colors and shades of grey, but where nothing is black and white. No answers are right or wrong, and nothing is objectively good nor bad; there is only emotion, and circumstance, and experience, and legacy, and it is the player who finds their way through it all, bringing their own personality and perspective to the story like one might bring a torch to a cave. Those tunnels may be limited by the way the rock has formed, but every explorer will see them from a different angle, and no two will ever tread the same path.
This weekend, after years of participation in my own Mass Effect story, I came to the end of it. The very end.
The ending has not been without controversy. I may unpack the details of the mechanism that brought about this ending at another time, but for now, my response to it has not shifted one iota from the moment of its in-game revelation.
There were three choices. One choice involved enslaving the enemy Reapers to stop them from destroying all organic life, managing this possibly only temporarily, with no balance applied, no way to know what the long-term consequences would be, and making our hero Shepard no better than any of the enemies she'd been fighting.
One choice involved destroying the Reapers and with them all artificial life, including life that I had, over the course of the game, come to be convinced had a right both to survival and to self-determination. Had you asked me, or my surrogate Shepard, at the beginning of this third installment what I would do if given the option to destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy, I would have taken it without a second thought. But by now, I wasn't so sure.
That is an impressive, and subtle, narrative feat.
When the third option was revealed — synthesis, in which all life in the galaxy is fused into equal parts organic and artificial, albeit at the cost of Shepard's life — I didn't hesitate, but sent her, injured and bleeding from her final battle, hobbling down the middle path.
As she drew near the end, she stopped, and turned around. There's nothing wrong with looking back, I thought, I'm just looking back, just once, to where the catalyst stood, and I thought — She could just destroy them, you know, she could just destroy artificial life and live out the rest of her days, knowing that the inevitable cycle would not repeat itself for tens of thousands of years, and at that point would be someone else's problem.
Of course, she'd be totally isolated from everyone she cared about by the necessary destruction of the mass relays, the system by which interstellar travel was possible. And she'd have to live with the knowledge that leaving a final solution to someone else could create room for error. She'd have to live knowing that it had to be her; someone else might get it wrong.
And Shepard would never do that, would never leave a job undone just so she could live a little bit longer. After all, technically she's already dead.
I looked around, in that moment, and in the windows overhead, just outside the Citadel, I watched a Reaper taking down an Alliance ship; I wondered if this small scene was placed there on purpose, to fortify my decision — it had to be. I thought, What kind of ending leaves room for this to continue?
I must have stopped Shepard a centimeter from where the story took control of her away from me again, because when I swung the camera back around, both distraught and certain, the final cutscene began to play, with Shepard throwing herself, confident as ever, into the beam and being slowly disintegrated, in her final moments remembering her friends.
The result, naturally, is that Shepard dies, but she also lives, as her sacrifice puts a piece of her in every living thing in the galaxy. Watching Shepard die is devastating, because while Shepard is a character in a story, for some, Shepard is also us, a better version of ourselves, the hero we all want to believe we'd be if we found ourselves in similar circumstances.
But she was always going to die; in the third installment alone, we spend thirty or forty hours (or, in my case, sixty) intermittently talking about the ruthless calculus of war, the simple fact that not everyone can be saved, that some will die so that others can live. That sacrifices will have to be made. The story tells us that absolute freedom is an illusion, or at least it was — and although Shepard may have cheated the Reapers of another harvesting cycle, there is one reaper no one escapes.
There's been a lot of deep thinking and desperate analysis from people who needed a happy ending, who needed an option in which Shepard and her love interest FTL-jump into the sunset, needed it with the same single-minded passion that we all need connection and closure and for the things we do to have some meaning and purpose — they needed answers. Some are very, very angry about it. Some have concocted an alternate explanation and I don't begrudge anyone that. Some are actively lobbying Bioware for a new ending "fix" and I don't begrudge them that either.
This entitlement is rooted in the fact that we don't want games to be realistic, many of us. We want games to give us control; we want games to tell us the stories we want to hear, not the ones we are forced to live every day, and we want games to give us clear ideologies and straight answers, not pepper us with more questions that terrify us with their unanswerability.
But no matter how invested we are, no matter how much we want things to go a certain way, we are no more the author of Shepard's fate than we are our own; at some point life will present us with difficult choices, and inevitably, we will someday die, and if we are very lucky, we will lie back in that moment and know that our life meant something.
Who wants to be reminded of this simple truth — that we all end — in a game? I do. I wept — an embarrassing sort of crying, not a quiet welling-up, but an overwhelming convulsion of sorrow and relief, replete with shuddering sobs and maybe even a subdued wail or two — throughout the ending, because Shepard knew she was not going to walk away from this, and I knew it too.
As benign and pleasant as a happy-ending option might have been, I like that this game made me cry; I like that this series forced me to invest so deeply in a story and in characters that their loss is something I feel almost as keenly as I would that of a living friend.
I like that my response was to feel a tidal wave of emotional need, a longing to grab all of my family and friends and even strangers in wild enthuiastic hugs, to tell them all how much I love them, and that our time is too short to do anything but fight to be the best people we can be, and to fight to make our world the most just and sacred and beautiful place we can imagine. To take risks. To treasure every moment, to remember that when tragedy strikes — as it inevitably will — there will be no time to spare on regrets, things we should have said, promises we should have kept.
I was sharing this video around all last week; it illustrates the oft-quoted idea that we are all made of stardust, which is a literal truth: the atoms that comprise our very bodies came from the exploded stars of long ago. In it, Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "We are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us."
As a result of Shepard's sacrifice, a piece of her lives on in every single life form in the galaxy. This is not an idea unique to Shepard, nor to the fictional world of Mass Effect where she resides; we are all connected in ways both meaningful and mundane, we all share this world together, and the best of all of us is in us already — we just have to find it and hold it up for others to see.
That is why I cried. I cried for the ending of a story that was made all the more meaningful by its definitive conclusion; I cried for all the time I waste not being loving and kind to everyone I meet, and I cried because I sometimes forget how marvelous and incredible life really is, even when it's drowning in sorrow and loss.
We only mourn the loss of what is meaningful and dear to us, and for all the sadness the void brings, I would never trade the joy that makes the pain inevitable. My Mass Effect story is over, and lucky me, I got the ending I needed: the one that reminded me how precious our time here truly is.
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First off GO GIRL GAMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have not played the mass effect games myself, tough i have watched my husband play the installments and plan to play them. I just have to finish the epic game which is skyrim (i know im behind…i have kids DONT JUDGE ME!) with similar shades of black, white and grey in the game play. I must say this. Bravo for companies making adult games with better narrative. Its not all just special effects and lazers now. I have cared about the story line in games since the days of FF2, and really have enjoyed watching the whole thing evolve, even as i matured. I feel honored just to have lived at the point in time, and have gotten to watch it happen.
I chose the same thing, and had a very similar reaction. I finished the game around 4 am on Saturday and just sat there snot-nosed, bawling my eyes out. I don't think any media has ever made me cry that much, although Mockingjay came close.
It's interesting that you connect Shepard's end to Mordin's. I didn't think of it at the time, but that is a great parallel. I connected it to Legion, and I think if it hadn't been for Legion I would have chosen to destroy the synthetics (I never even considered Control). Legion single-mindedly pursued the salvation of his people, up to and including sacrificing himself completely without hesitation in order to make it happen; now every single Geth carries him with them. Same with Shepard. To destroy all the synthetics so that Shepard can live? What an insult to him. In stories, I am hardly ever convinced that self-sacrifice is the way to go; there's always another way, and I love it when characters stubbornly pursue that other way. But this game convinced me, and it hurt, and it was amazing.
There are certainly some things about the very end that don't make much sense, or could use clarification. (Destruction of the Mass Relays doesn't REALLY mean the entire population of the galaxy is stuck in Sol, right?) But in the moment I just didn't give a fuck, because this woman who had done so much, so so much for so many people dropped her weapon and ran into that beam of light and her fight was finally over, and the galaxy was a better place at last.
(NB: This comment turned out to be so long, I posted it to my tumblr after I finished writing it.)
I hate the ending. I don't mind that Shepard died.
I just can't take any option presented by the Machine Satan at face value.
This Thing, that dares to present itself in the image of a boy whose death it is responsible for, invented the Reapers. The Reapers that lay waste to civilizations, that enslave with mind-destroying technology, that melt down living and conscious creatures en masse.
It offers, as its excuse for the monsters it has authored, the same proposition that led the Quarians to attack the Geth in their infancy. The same lie told Reaper of Rannoch. I'd told it to fuck off and die, which it did, and turned around and proved it wrong.
The player is clearly expected to follow suit. This supremely guilty being is presented as a reliable narrator, a thinly veiled mouthpiece for the designers of the game. The conversation is a last-minute twist which is supposed to turn everything you thought you knew on its head, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny and comes off as too similar to the expressions of various indoctrinated characters. (In the sidequest to save the Hanar homeworld, the indoctrinated Hanar believes that the Reapers will grant the Hanar ascension to a higher state. If you let the scientist from Saren's base live in ME1 and ME2, you receive an E-mail informing you that she gave her life to kill leading Asari, on the grounds that they were obstructing the Reapers' efforts to bring the Asari ascension. The Thing describes compulsory conversion of species into Reapers as "we help them ascend.")
When I first listened to this bullshit, I was thrown out of the fiction. My investment in Shepard's fate, my sadness for Anderson's passing, my emotional high when Hackett desperately asks you to activate the Crucible: deflated.
I fell back on metagame reasoning, figured that Synthesis was what high war score earned me, and took it. Then I saw some shit involving the Normandy which was flatly impossible. All I could say to my closest Mass-Effect friend: "Well that was dumb." I ruminated for a week.
There are holes in Indoctrination Theory, e.g. the Prothean VI thinks Shepard is clean. More importantly, the theory holds that the story has not actually ended.
That kind of tin-foil hat conspiracy theory ("the final length of the game is an illusion, which is not revealed as such afterwards, we have not seen the real ending") shouldn't be less of a stretch than a straight reading, but it is. It answers more questions than it raises.
Now, if I refuse to simply dismiss the whole thing as a literary failure, I have to assume that the Thing is untrustworthy, and that no course save the one it clearly disfavors could possibly mean an end to the Reapers' cycle.
The Thing claims that Destroy will end all synthetics, "even the Geth," and by implication EDI. Even Shepards who destroy the Geth (no Shepard I'd play) would value EDI. This is clearly intended to be a deal breaker for Shepard, and for many players it is. But in light of the untrustworthy source of this information, I cannot be sure whether the Geth and EDI will die, or that this claim is a lie designed to dissuade Shepard.
The other two options are echoes of plans put forward by indoctrinated individuals. Control is the The Illusive Man's hope. We've just confronted him, so there's no hiding that. But the origin of Synthesis is concealed by omission: it's Saren's equally false hope.
I don't conclude that the events are hallucinatory, but I do believe that Shepard is being subjected to rapid indoctrination, intended to either compel him to desist or destroy his consciousness, before he can destroy the Reapers.
Reading over the comment while it's in mod queue (am thankful for that feature) I noticed that an entire paragraph is missing from the middle of it. As far as I can tell, there's no way for me to correct the error.
The paragraph is present in the tumblr version of the post.
This makes me want to start playing video games. I don't know how you do it, Lesley, you have a way with words, everytime I read something you've written I feel connected to you(r thoughts on the subject).
I so, so, so hope you'll play Dragon Age: Origins next.
My wife and I have been playing this side by side – I'll take a turn with my Femshep and then she'll take a turn with her Broshep – and we both finished up yesterday. FLOODS OF TEARS AND EXCITEMENT.
I went with Synthesis, she went with Destroy… and immediately wished she hadn't. Seeing that little gasp that Shepard takes in the Destroy ending, she was positive that her Shepard killed himself from the guilt as soon as he was able to lift a gun to his brow.
I really, absolutely don't understand the disappointment in the ending. Stages of grief, really, starting with denial (Indoctrination Theory) and heading on downwards. I loved the ending, but I totally spent the rest of the day mourning the death of my Shepard, and finding a tiny amount of comfort in reading that turians have a similar lifespan to humans, so at least Garrus won't have to live for centuries without her.
I should also say, you're the entire reason I picked up Mass Effect to start with. Your Garrus!Shepard article sold me on it completely.


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The following is a statement from my plant tour of the Seattle University campus this afternoon, hosted by the Hedreen Gallery. JD
People love gardening and gardens. They delight in the sensual beauty of plants and the opportunity to construct their own living, breathing work of art. But what can be gained from gardening is a shift in perception and the discovery of a wider, deeper field of vision.
Plants possess properties that allow us to understand the world in complex ways. Each day of the year a tree puts on a unique, specific display that allows us to recognize not only the season but its progress. The swelling and breaking of buds, the emergence of leaf and bloom, the opening and abscission of the flower, the maturation, transformation and ultimate fall of the foliage and fruit, and the outward reach and hardening off of the new shoots all indicate a particular moment in time in the course of the year.
Beyond the season, trees have developed their unique characteristics and habit in response to both evolutionary processes and the immediate conditions of their placement. The thickness, color, size and position of the leaf, the surface and texture of the bark, and the structure of the branches and canopy all reflect thousands of years of pressure from specific environments. On a more immediate level, a particular specimen reacts to the conditions of its placement, namely its exposure to light, temperature, wind and human interference.
In other words, all of the tree's physical attributes have a role and purpose. The gardener, through his or her labor and powers of observation, seeks to understand their biological intent.
The garden, with its combination of scenic and sensory effects, is a work of art that represents the designer's idea of order. It is not fixed; it is a dialogue between the gardener and the forces of nature. We create a garden in accordance with our knowledge and it responds to us with information of its own. As we make adjustments we refine our ability to read its messages and gain further knowledge. The resulting physical space becomes a manifestation of our vision and process.
But the real transformation takes place within us. As we look around at the world, we find our perception of it altered through this experience of the garden. The structure of natural landscapes, the architecture of human-built environments and even the works of art we observe take on a new dimension. Our ability to recognize natural phenomena and discern stages in the cycles of life and death gives us a new power – and a new vocabulary – to make sense of things.
— By Jim Demetre


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|Web Reg Available to:
Resident: 12/10/2019 @ 8:30A - 05/28/2020 @ 12:00A
Non-Resident: 12/24/2019 @ 8:30A - 05/28/2020 @ 12:00A
|16 years and Up
Participants of all levels can expect relaxing and interactive exercises that aid to embark on a healthy lifestyle with reduced stress, improved concentration, and increased happiness. Classes will meet at the CRC every Thursday evening from 7:00 p.m. through 8:00 p.m.
Ages: 18+
Household credits and refunds are considered when an activity or program is cancelled by the City of Aventura or in the case of medical emergency accompanied by appropriate documentation that can be verified.
All refunds and credits take approximately 6 weeks to process from the date of request. No refund or credit requests will be considered after a program has concluded.
This class is held on Thursdays.


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The Vatican on Wednesday confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI is considering changes to church law regulating the election of a new pope, but stopped short of saying whether voting could start earlier than currently planned.
Pope John Paul II's 1996 Apostolic Constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis" regulates what happens between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of his successor.
It stipulates that the conclave of cardinals must begin 15 to 20 days after the end of the previous pontificate.
But after Benedict's surprise announcement that he will resign on Feb. 28, several voices within the church have asked for an earlier start to the voting to shorten the time the Catholic Church is left without a leader.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, said on Wednesday that the pontiff is considering the publication of a decree "to clarify some specific points of the Apostolic Constitution on the conclave that had been pointed out to him in recent years."
According to Vatican Insider, the religion news portal of the Italian daily La Stampa, Benedict will authorize the cardinals' assembly that will govern the church after his resignation to vote whether to move up the beginning of the conclave.
Lombardi stressed that he didn't know whether the pope "will deem it necessary to issue a clarification on the date of the start of the conclave."
"We'll see it if and when the document is published," he said.
Instead, he said some of the changes that Benedict could introduce would "fully harmonize" John Paul's 1996 rules with another document that lays out in detail the rites to be followed during the conclave.
Benedict already modified the conclave rules in 2007, reversing a previous change that allowed popes to be elected under some circumstances with a simple majority, rather than with a two-thirds majority.
As Benedict's scheduled resignation approaches, the date of the conclave is only one of the many unanswered questions sparked by the unprecedented change in leadership.
The Vatican is still struggling to define what title the former pope will have, and whether he will be attending the inauguration Mass of his successor.
Each of the issues has potentially far-reaching consequences for the delicate relationship between a living ex-pope and his successor, who will be living a few hundred meters apart within the Vatican walls.
According to a senior Vatican source, the initial reaction to Benedict's announcement--shock mixed with admiration--is being replaced by "dismay" and even "disappointment."
The pope's resignation, though considered in church law, caught the Vatican machine utterly unprepared, and observers say it's still too early to evaluate its long-term effects.
In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Wednesday, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a respected German theologian and longtime head of the Vatican's ecumenical office, said that the role of the pope and of the Vatican Curia will have to be reconsidered in light of Benedict's decision.
The "sacred aura" that has come to surround popes in the last two centuries, Kasper said, "is now somewhat lost."
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Carrie Ann Inaba Loves Kids
Well, I'm not really sure if Carrie Ann loves kids or not, but she's sure doing a bunch of different kids things. Check out these pictures of Carrie Ann Inaba to see what I mean.
First, it's Carrie Ann Inaba at the Kids' Choice Awards (I think she's doing one of her dance moves)
Then, it looks like she also is a big fan of the Jonas Brothers since she was at the premiere of the new Jonas Brothers movie.


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Utah St. 77, Texas A&M-CC 68
BY foxsports • November 17, 2012
Jarred Shaw and Preston Medlin scored 17 points each as Utah State defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 77-68 on Saturday night.
Kyisean Reed added 15 points for the Aggies (2-1), who shot 56.8 percent (25 of 44) from the floor.
Will Nelson scored 17 points and Johnathan Jordan added 13 for the Islanders (1-2).
Utah State led 31-28 early in the second half when it broke the game open with an 18-2 run over a 4:07 stretch. Reed, Medlin and Shaw scored six points each during the surge.
The Aggies won the rebounding battle 33-23 and outscored Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 32-20 in the paint.
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Pituitary Dwarfism in German Shepherd Dogs
Pituitary dwarfism in German shepherd dogs is a rare kind of autosomal, recessive inherited disorder. This condition is irrepairable and is characterized by the lack of growth hormone, thyrotropin, prolactin, the gonadotropins and undeveloped pituitary gland. Although these hormones are not secreted properly, yet corticotropin secretion remains unaffected, which leads to dwarfism in GSD. Researches have been carried out throughout the world, on Pituitary Dwarfism in German Shepherds.
Studies have shown that mutation of a gene encoding a transcription factor which is responsible for precluding the expansion of pituitary stem cells after differentiation of corticotropic cells may be the probable cause of Pituitary dwarfism in German shepherd dog. Treating this condition is almost impossible, but identification of the specific mutation will help in a DNA test for potential breeding dogs. Selective breeding may erradicate the problem.
Pituitary dwarfism recessive inherited abnormality. Some of the highly scientific genealogical investigations have been carried out that indicated that the origin of the recessive gene is a mutation which had occurred at about 1940 or may be even before 1940s. Researches have indicated that many winning dog have been reciognised to be the carriers of this genetic condition.
The genetic defect causing congenital GH deficiency in German Shepherd Dogs may be the probable cause of Dwarfism in other breeds like Carelian Bear Dogs and Saarloos Wolfhounds. Well this may sound a bit unrealistic, but as a matter of fact the pituitary dwarfism in Carelian Bear Dogs and Saarloos Wolfhoundshad been recognized for the first time after the German shepherd dogs had been used in breeding the later breeds.
Selective bearding is recommended in order to steer clear of undesirable traits and genetic issues in the breed.
Check out the breeder's Responsibilities while Breeding GSD
Learn more about Dwarfism in German Shepherd Dogs.


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SALT LAKE CITY - More cliff-top rocks similar to ones that killed a middle-age couple when they smashed into their home near Zion National Park could come loose, Utah geologists warn.
A 375-foot-high sandstone slab near the former rock slide now threatens to crash, shatter and flatten homes below, according to the Utah Geological Survey report released Thursday.
When it comes to hazards of falling rock, "some are annoyances, some are deadly," said Bill Lund, a senior scientist at the Utah Geological Survey. "And we're dealing with one of the deadly ones here."
There's "no question," said the report, that future rock falls will hit Rockville, population 250. The report comes from a team of state geologists who surveyed the December wreckage and nearby cliffs on foot and from a helicopter.
Rockville Mayor Tracy Dutson declined an interview but said in an email that the town would use the report to help current residents and potential
homeowners there understand the risks.
In mid-December, officials recounted, an explosive boom sent up a cloud of dust just before dinnertime on a Thursday evening, killing the couple and crushing their small chalet, garage and the front half of a Hyundai SUV.
Other looming rock masses and crags could unhinge at any moment, Lund said.
tumbling down onto a string of homes in and around Rockville, about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Residents should pack and move, they caution, or understand that they could die if they choose to stay.
Rockville faces higher risk than neighboring Springdale and La Verkin because the canyon walls taper in there, forcing homes to huddle closer to cliffs.
"They just don't have a lot of room to maneuver in that town," Lund said.
The massive December slab shattered when it hit an underlying slope a bit steeper than a typical mall escalator and sent boulders racing down onto the Main Street home, the report found.
The largest boulder to slam the home weighed 520 tons, nearly as much as over 30 gravel-filled dump trucks.
It marked first time anyone in Rockville has died, but the sixth time hulking rock has fallen in the last 13 years and the third to strike a building, the report finds. Since 1850, Utah has counted at least 20 deaths from falling rock.
An earlier report from the same team of geologists in 2011 pointed out hazardous areas, which included the home destroyed in December.
Efforts to brace against the falling blocks, including fences, or bolts into cliffs likely won't prevent future slides, it found.
The report recommends the town try to buy up homes and lots in dangerous areas but says it's unknown if federal, state or other sources could help relocate residents.
Joe Dougherty, spokesman for state Division of Emergency Management, said he didn't know if the division would help residents move. About a decade ago, he added, the division helped secure a federal grant to buy homes in a North Salt Lake community plagued by mudslides.
Rockville, with neither a stop light nor a schoolhouse, lies five miles west of Zion National Park, known for its soaring red rock and emerald pools.
The half-mile town's 250 residents include year-round residents, as well as those who own vacation homes, said Elaine Harris, the town clerk.
Maureen Edgel, owner of the Desert Thistle Bed and Breakfast in Rockville, said the December deaths saddened the close-knit town and jostled nerves there.
"When you see the house demolished now and it's just big rocks," she said, "it's sad to know that you know someone one day and the next day they're gone."
But Edgel noted, most residents understand the threat: Boulders every so often tumble into southern Utah swimming pools and backyards.
"I don't think we really fear it," she said. "I think most of us just go on about our daily work."


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It is a scary thing to invite a friend or friends over for dinner when, being called "the queen of the kitchen" was never in the list of endearments you have ever received. Especially if your friends are hard core foodies, that can make a 5 course dinner, wearing their 7 inch Jimmy Choo's and not breaking a sweat.
Cooking for friends should be about having fun. Being able to chat with them and drink a glass of Pinot as soon as they walk through the door. You don't want to worry about getting everything ready on time, or having to slave over the new induction top you recently installed for hours.
Simple combinations and stand out ingredients should be the way to go if you are lacking confidence in the kitchen. This way the food speaks for itself. Besides more complex an ingredient the more likely your guests pallet wouldn't be able to appreciate it.
Easy Rib Roast
one 7- to 8-pound beef rib roast (with four rib bones)
1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 cup smashed garlic cloves (about 10 cloves)
1/4 cup canned anchovy fillets
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup fresh thyme leaves (from about 10 sprigs)
1 spring of Rosemary
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 celery stalk, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup beef or chicken stock, or canned low-sodium beef or chicken broth, or as needed
1/2 cup red wine
Tie the roast with cooking twine between the rib bones (in three sections) so it will hold its shape while roasting, and allow it to sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Place the olive oil, garlic, anchovies, chopped onion, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor and process until you have a smooth paste. (Alternatively, chop everything except the oil to- gether, then mash the mixture in a mortar and pestle until smooth; then incorporate the oil.) Set the paste aside.
Place the onion, carrot, and celery pieces in a roasting pan or a metal baking dish that is large enough to hold the rib roast. Using a flexible spatula, smear the paste on all sides of the roast. Set the roast on top of the vegetables and roast in the oven for 1 1/2 hours.
Continue to cook to desired degree of doneness, checking the internal temperature of the roast with an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part. It should read 125°F to 130°F for rare to medium- rare. If you would prefer the roast to be medium to medium-well throughout, add a cup of broth to the pan to prevent the vegetables from burning, and continue to cook up to 30 minutes longer.
Remove the roast from the oven and cut the string.
To carve the roast, detach the entire section of rib bones by slicing along the side of the roast against the bone until it is separated. Turn the roast on its flat side and slice across the grain to the desired thickness. Alternatively, you can serve the beef without separating the ribs: turn the roast on its end (vertically), and while holding it steady with a carving fork, carve slices by cutting against the grain with a very sharp knife. Or (probably the easiest way to envision slicing), lay the roast on a cutting board, ribs down, and carve by slicing the ribs apart.
Strain the juices from the pan and serve on top of meat.
Yield: 8 servings
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


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Ready to party like an A-lister and look like one, too? Whether you're an in-the-know native or a soon-to-be guest, get ready to have your #BestNightEver in some of America's most vibrant cities: New York, Miami, and Los Angeles!
These tips will keep you on your toes — and the paparazzi on your heels.
- Make it a mane event. Before it's a night to remember, it has to be a good hair day. Gorgeous locks start at the scalp, so prep more than a week beforehand with new CLEAR SCALP & HAIR BEAUTY THERAPY™. The breakthrough approach nourishes the scalp, creating the right foundation for strong, beautiful hair in seven days!
- Be ready for anything. You never know where the evening is going to take you, so choose an ensemble that's classic, chic, and comfortable (Note to self: killer stilettos might just kill your party buzz!).
- Don't believe the hype. If your goal is to hit the most talked about spots in town, you'll probably spend most of your night waiting behind the velvet rope. Think like a celeb and go incognito at one of the city's hidden gems.
For even more tips and a complete list of hot spots download a city guide below.
Click here to see our guide to the #BestNightEver in NYC.
Click here to see our guide to the #BestNightEver in Miami.
Click here to see our guide to the #BestNightEver in Los Angeles.
Have the Best Night Ever From
Coast to Coast originally posted on POPSUGAR Beauty
Coast to Coast originally posted on POPSUGAR Beauty


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This article is a guild information page for Twilight Serenade of Sentinels US.
The contents herein are entirely player made and in no way represent official World of Warcraft history or occurrences which are accurate for all realms. The characters and events listed are of an independent nature and applied for roleplaying, fictional, speculative, or opinions from a limited playerbase only. Guild pages must comply with the guild page policy.
Twilight Serenade strives to be a helpful family of reliable, role-playing friends -- we aren't too interested in power-leveling or organizing end-game raids... we mainly seek fun and companionship.
- Server: Server:Sentinels US
- Faction: Alliance
- Website: http://z11.invisionfree.com/Twilight_Serenade/
- Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Sentinels&n=Twilight+Serenade&p=1
The calls of the myriad creatures of the forests we call home echo in the ears of those chosen to defend the lands of the Kaldorei. Twilight Serenade, a medium RP guild, is welcoming recruits more interested in joining a family than end-game raids. We are trying to be selective about our membership -- but we would be happy to welcome you into our family on a probationary basis, for a few weeks, to determine if we're the guild for you.
This guild was originally formed by a small group of women with a heavy RP vision. When one of the founding officers disappeared, one of the other officers (her lesbian lover) fell into a state of despair, and was eventually asked to leave the guild. Soon thereafter, the original guild master was diagnosed with cancer, and forced to leave the game as well. Leadership of the guild was passed on to Garick, the only officer on-line at the time. When his leadership style (or lack thereof) was questioned by members of the guild, Garick and two officers quit. Leadership eventually fell to Inoue, and when she stepped down to focus on school, her friend Eravin took over. However, through all of the leadership changes, Twilight Serenade has remained together, and has switched from a heavy RP focus to a more casual, medium RP focus. (You might consider it heavy RP, but without being all anal about it.)
- Recent update as of December 27th 2009*
Maverickious, outcast of the Serenade returned not as an enemy, but as a sympathetic voice for his people. The lost ways of his family...his friends, his very being, spoke to the heroes of Azeroth... postings placed in all major cities, commoners and the like began to speak of what the questionable man had posted anywhere he thought might listen....
The following is what any could read from his posters and of his voice when confronted with questions of his sincerity...
- It was the coming of arthas that shook the very foundations of the world, an evil so pure that only a being composed of pure light could vanquish. But in life there is always the riddle. What has two sides but always lands shiny side up? What is evil not by choice but by environment? In this world, the one called Azeroth many are heroes, but few are distinguished by the actions they display.
"Light has it's darkness, evil has it's own enemy, and in this world much like Lord Fordring there is always...another to take it's place." T'was the words of my father, and though I wish only long life and eternal youth to our savior, I know that his time will come, and another will take on his crusade against the forces of evil. I believe this within the very depths of my soul, as seasons come and go I see myself become not an instrument of the light, but a pawn in the ever continuing fight against the dark thoughts of man. In desperation Arthas searched to end this battle, but desperation leads to hopelessness, and when one loses hope, he turns to the solution of violence, death and destruction. When the once prince of the free lands took up the evil blade that shall remained unnamed he set in motion a series of events that would change my own beliefs....
My name is Maverickious Deltorn Sul'thane, reborn as Maverickious Kelsessor, in the tongue of the Titan's.....Maverickious....the son. I knew not my own role in the shaping of the world, but in time, much like life, destiny showed itself to me. In the eyes of an innocent, I was the purest of lights. And in the eyes of the purest of lights, I saw what man had done to our mother..... It was rape, the power given to us was abused, much like Thrall's people before him we were tricked. But such a trickery would never go unnoticed, such an evil never left unbalanced. In these ages, the age of dwarf, Elf, and the Draeni a race I call brother, I rose like no other, as first a warrior, then a mage, and now, the shunned Death Knight they saw through it all.....
They say every story has a beginning...and my story is no different....
The light first graced my presence in the form of Inoue....the lovely Elven woman that saw past my tough extirior and saw the man that dwelt inside. As time passed her guild fell, yet I grew, as a man, as a person....as a being of truth. Her family left, her friends grew distant, but the connection never faulterd. Back long before the day of war my father gave me a stone. He told me to give it to only those I trusted....and since then I grew to trust only two. My soulmate Tin, not of my own race, but of my own life. And Inoue, the female Elf I owed my very existence to... Maverickious up until now had been but a passing thought, the failed rebirth of the old code had been nothing but my own doing. But Inoue still said "In time they will see." And time it took, after years of silent movement others came to me, but it was a time after my knighthood, I was no longer a knight but a mage, yet still the call of war made its way into my thoughts..... War....war has its own meaning, for me, it is change, a time to put aside the trivial hate the Horde has for these Allied races. I know now the Orcs were never our enemies, they were pawns, as we still remain today.....
And the titans...as powerful as they were could never stop the greed for power. If the titans could not stop Frostmourne how could the allied races ever hope to defeat such a great thing? Simple, they gave us, the mortals, the choice. They say "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Or at least that is the words of my father, to you that would be the founder of the allied races.... Yes, the man that tells you the story of how Arthas fell is indeed older than recorded time itself... But I speak not from age, but from what I have seen. There was a time when Humans were innocent, before magic, before demons, before Orcs, we were the dominant race here in Azeroth. Egar, curious, and full of potential.... But time is but a river, history repeats itself, and here I am, like the Titans before me, fighting an evil that seems endless.....
Then why tell you now of something that will come to be no matter what the outcome? Hope. The single most powerful word in any language. Orcs see Thrall as hope, I saw my lord, Fordring as the same beacon, but what I failed to realize was that for hope to endure, it first must die. Oh for I hope that in these words and my inevitable death, you my sons, friends, brothers, and sisters. See that hope will never die. If evil stands in your way, you will see my sacrifice as not a redemption of my soul....but a redemption for my fathers, and my fathers, fathers..... We are but one race, the race against time, and without the hope for a better future, Horde and Alliance differences aside....we will fail....and evil will have won....
For no matter how pure your belief is.... it is within ourselves that we can rid the greed for power....and share life, mourn death, and be what the titans made us to be....the defenders of the just, protectors of the innocent, and guards of the light. I fear not that my words fall upon deaf ears, for it is not belief in me you must have...but belief in life....-
- Maverickious' life is not directly related to this guild but is connected in a way that merits this update.
Inquiries can be sent to email@example.com
Weekly Meeting Schedule
Family gatherings are held on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm Server Time at the abandoned house just north of Maestra's Post in Ashenvale.
Guild Rules
- You must be a role player to be a member of this guild.
- We are defined as a medium to heavy role playing guild and therefore expect our members to remain in character when using /say, /yell, and /guild. Please refrain from excessive use of OOC ((bracket)) speech in /say. This just clutters the text and makes it hard to differentiate between what is IC and OOC. It is encouraged to remain in character whenever possible except in our designated out of character channel called TSooc.
- As a member of the Twilight Serenade, you character wears our tag above their head and are thus a representative for everyone else to see. Therefore don't be an idiot. Seriously, common sense is a coveted commodity that we appreciate.
- We value the complete sentence, correct grammar and punctuation very highly. Yes everyone makes spelling mistakes and common misconceptions in English grammar but everyone should make an effort to spell out their words and not use heinous abbreviations.
- Any use of "1337" or net speak while in character will not be tolerated. The only acceptable use of this genre is in our out of character chat and making fun of those who seriously use it and wouldn't know the difference between a complete sentence and a hole in their head. Then have a field day!
- No OOC drama! In character drama is fine as long it is controlled to an extent but mostly if the players behind the characters can make that separation. We don't all have to be super-friends but unnecessary drama is just that. Please be courteous to the other players and their roleplaying styles.
- If your "roleplaying" is interfering and ruining other player's experiences then your actions will be evaluated by the officers and followed by a warning. If the behavior persists after repeated warnings then the individual will be removed from the guild. We have kicked people in the past for being just plain stupid and hindering everyone else's game play. Our intention is to provide a mutual atmosphere where everyone can reach their individual goals while enjoying themselves. So please police yourselves so that you are not having a negative impact on others.
- Separate reality from the game. (Somewhat of an elaboration from the previous point.) Please do not take things too seriously as far as in-character interactions go. This is especially dangerous with engaging in IC emotions. Just be aware of and be able to separate real life emotion from in-game emotion. This will help cut down on a lot of potential out-of-character drama.
- Please be respectful to the officers. They are players with the same aspirations as everyone else and try their hardest to create an environment that will be rewarding to all members. Any problems, disagreements or anything that does not settle well with you please feel absolutely free to come to any of the officers and talk with them. Even if no action is taken from the talk we need to know how everyone in the guild is feeling if we are to make things better.
- When participating in the out-of-character channel please conduct yourself in a respectable manner. It is understood that the subject matter in general is going to be fun and silly and this is encouraged as long as things don't get out of hand. Vulgarities and other grossly offensive subjects will not be tolerated. This means do not swear or use obsensities, unless of course, you want all four officers jumping down your throat at the same time.
- Do not metagame. Metagaming is making your character do something because of knowledge that you have but your character wouldn't necessarily have. If you know something OOCly then do not make your character react ICly from it. It's not hard; it just requires that pesky thread of effort.
- Do not god-mod. God-modding is attempting to create an unlikely situation within the game environment and forcing it on others. For example, "Joe Idiot runs in and chops your head off!" This situation is not only stupid it creates an unwanted condition for other roleplayers to either attempt to deal with or ignore. This goes along with the 'don't be an idiot' point from above.
- Have an in character purpose for what you are doing. Even the simplest reasons are significant enough to carry out our actions. Feel free to set goals and feed off of other's stories. We don't expect you to have a fifteen page history about your character. Allow your characters to grow and ultimately become a richly developed aspect of the guild as well as the rest of Azeroth.
- You will be expelled from the guild if you do not log on for a month without a notice of absence.
- You must join the website to prove that you have read the rules. Important information is posted on the site on message boards that people that have not joined can't see.
- No vampires or other creatures that DO NOT exist in WarCraft lore. This extends to Harry Potter, Forgotten Realms characters/races and Smurfs. Also Dragonkin should be limited. Dragons are reclusive and would not parade around Stormwind shouting "I'm a dragon, here me roar!" They would take great pains to hide the fact that they are, in fact, a dragon." (We had some issues with people RPing dragons in disguise and then god-modding.)
- By joining the guild, the website and the out of character channel, you have agreed to the rules and that the officers do, in fact, hold authority over you if you break one of these rules.
- Eravin, Guild master
- Current guild leader.
- Inoue, Officer
- Former guild master.
- Sandry, Officer
- The Muffin lady.
- Llewyletha, Officer
- Wyvernmaster, Officer
- Aveowyn, Veteran
- Gavrie, Veteran


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So Far to Kazuo
Billboards in New York City touted his valiant arrival. Buzzing baseball elite charged that he would revolutionize the Mets. Everyday fans scurried to find a suitable nickname for their new best player they'd never heard of.
It was the Spring of 2004 and if you asked me to speak some Japanese, even I probably would've said: Matsui-san. Kazuo Matsui-san.
Because I, too, joined the hype.
But why? Why was the baseball world so enamored with an import player whom no one knew anything about? Why did we allow his persona to be so pumped up with pomp, such expectation, sight unseen?
Indeed, Ichiro Suzuki changed the landscape of Major League Baseball — allowing for the mysteriously effective small-ball game to reinject itself into the big boppin' steroidfest it had become. His mannerisms, his character, his magnetism — on and off the field — were a throwback to the baseball heroes of old. Marveled by his talent, we the US American public accepted and celebrated Ichiro for resurrecting respect in a league where little remained.
So I get it. I understand why we started to get excited about the Japanese baseball contention.
But, the fact is: for every Ichiro Suzuki there's a Kosuke Fukudome, a So Taguchi, or worse, a Kaz Matsui. For every Hideo Nomo, a Kei Igawa, Hideki Irabu, Daisuke Matsuzaka.
And while it makes a good headline that the A's and Twins are going out and bidding top dollar for the rights — yes, just the rights — to negotiate with Hisashi Iwakuma and Tsuyoshi Nishioka respectively, I still can't help but feel sorry for the failure both are being set up for in the future.
American, Dominican, Venezuelan, Canadian, Japanese… there's only one Ichiro.
And as proved by Kazuo Matsui's silent saunter back home this offseason, expecting anything but is a guarantee for disappointment.
Hate me. Whatevs. Just don't hate me 'cuz I'm right.


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" The was exceptional in the way it was administered and written. I got more that I expected. Excellent course. "
" What a fantastic course, especially for the cost. You can get out of it whatever you are willing to put into it. I would recommend this course to others. "


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I guess I haven't posted here in quite a while. The time seems to have flown by, yet so much has happened which I will try to record, for posterity's sake. ;)
At the end of June, Mom and Dad told my brother and myself that this summer would be "screen-free," which means no wii, no computer games, and limited facebook time. I wasn't really looking forward to it, but it hasn't been going too badly so far. We've kept ourselves quite busy lately, LIKE WITH OUR NEW OCARINAS!!! :D
My brother and I got these beauts
about two weeks ago, and they've been so much fun to learn! I've also really been keeping busy with my Zelda project. Recall the armor that I finished a few weeks (or is it months now?) ago? I've basically finished the entire costume now, and my brother and I are continuing to work on his Link cosplay. (cos-play verb /'käz,pla/ short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan.) We're planning a photo-shoot in August with my friend, who cosplays Sheik. When all is said and done, we'll be the coolest trio in Northern Saskatchewan! ...Mostly because we're the only cosplayers in Northern Saskatchewan. Oh well.
In other news, I've been drawing a lot lately (big surprise) and while I'm on a Zelda fanart streak, thought I'd share what I've been up to.


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The Discipline
Pete's Basement Season 9, Episode 8 - 3.7.16
Pastry aficionado Hannah from 8-Bit Bakery joins the roundtable this week, and she's brought plenty of goodies for The Basement Crew! From a giant cookie emblazoned with the Pete's Basement logo itself -- getting attacked by Space Invaders! to smaller specialized cookie boxes each with delicious treats made according to their own unique video game theme! Pete puts the whiskey to the side and breaks out the milk for this one! Once they've eaten their fill....they eat some more! C'mon, act like you know these guys!
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Submitted by Pete on Wed, 03/09/2016 - 08:35


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So I wake up this morning, a day off for me. I fire up the laptop, check the news, and see that Manchester City's splash signing, Edin Dzeko, would have preferred signing with Juventus according to his agent. You have to put two and two together, since that article doesn't do it for you, but the Juventus offer was less than Manchester City's offer, so it wasn't money that lured him to City, it was desperation.
Over the past two or three weeks, there have been a lot of questions about City's practices. We know they have the money to do all of this wheelin' and dealin', but as has been talked about on our site's podcast, they currently have player-after-top-player, so much so that many high-quality pieces are languishing on the bench.
Take the Arsenal match for example. Granted, David Silva and Mario Balotelli were unavailable due to scrapes. Mancini used that as his excuse for playing his normal "stonewall against a better team" philosophy. What, Emmanuel Adebayor isn't good? I could think of several clubs in the league who could use his skills. Every week, it's like, "Everton needs a striker. Brum needs a striker." And presumably, the thing that would prevent all of this is that City wants $$$ for players like Adebayor. Big $$$. But he's not worthwhile enough to use in a game where, according to Mancini, if he had a second attacker he would have played an open game? Right.
There were the reports of Tevez wanting out. Who knows what calmed him down, maybe they had puppet José come in and tell him, "Shut up Carlos! You're getting paid!" Then Balotelli is heartbroken for Italy. I guess everyone prefers Italia, that's where Dzeko would rather be. Hey, maybe they can relocate to Mancini's hometown of Jesi! Everyone will be happy, with tummies full of Tuscan cuisine, remarking how effectively that 4-5-1 worked against AC Milan the other night.
In all seriousness, you now will have 4 coveted strikers at City. Tevez, Balotelli, Dzeko, and Adebayor. To claim that any squad, even United, stacks up to this group is a stretch. It is true that, in prime form, Wayne Rooney is a better footballer than all four of those City strikers. This season Berbatov has shown himself to be roughly as good as Tevez. Javier Hernandez was a bit of a gamble for Sir Alex, and that has paid dividends. But to say that Hernandez is as good as Balotelli or Dzeko is likely a stretch. Out of the remaining forwards, the only one that could be considered close would be Danny Welbeck, having a very good campaign on loan with Sunderland.
So let's say that Roberto Mancini decides to take a quick course at the Arsene Wenger University of Positive Football. And let's say Hell freezes over. But I repeat myself. Can Mancini keep 4 strikers happy employing a markedly defensive system? He hasn't kept 3 happy, and Tevez gets to play nearly every match. The interesting thing is…this post has covered only the striker position. This depth of talent is spread throughout the squad, at nearly every position. Another well-publicized case is goalkeeper, with Shay Given sitting stagnantly as Joe Hart starts every game. This is a role reversal from 2009, when Given was purchased to solidify the position. But Hart's reputation and ability soared on loan at Birmingham City, and now City has two high profile keepers.
So my question is, can City survive what seems to be a potential clubhouse disaster? Can Mancini effectively assuage the swollen egos that have been apparent even before the acquisition of Dzeko? Will City sell (or loan) Adebayor and/or Given? I do think that Manchester City will finish in a Champions League slot, but these issues to me seem potential derailing points to an otherwise solid City team.
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Mural City
Cuba, MO
Heather Berry
When members of Viva Cuba, a beautification
group in Cuba, Mo., began their mural project, they probably couldn't
imagine the effect it would have on their little town, located 75 miles
southwest of St. Louis. Thousands of visitors now flock to the town
to see the beautifully painted images that recount pieces of Cuba's
The project began in 2001 when
Peoples Bank commissioned an outdoor mural to commemorate the bank's
100th anniversary. The building-long mural, which portrays the bank's
first president and the first Model T in town, was so well received
that Viva Cuba commissioned 11 more outdoor murals to be painted along
the Route 66 corridor by this year, when the town celebrated its 150th
The large murals, painted by local
and nationally known artists, portray scenes such as a campaign appearance
by Harry S. Truman, the incident of an unauthorized photo being taken
of movie star Bette Davis when she was visiting and an illustration
of the Blue Bonnet, a Frisco train which once served Cuba.
Cuba artist and art teacher Shelly Smith-Steiger, who painted or assisted
with many of the murals, touches up a scene where Amelia Earhart makes
an emergency landing in her Avro plane outside Cuba in 1928.
in town, nine mural panels depict Civil War battles in Missouri.
The series was a joint project between Viva Cuba and then-15-year-old
Chip Lange, a Civil War buff. As part of his Eagle Scout project, Lange
raised half of the $36,000 needed for the series, which was then
matched by the Viva Cuba organization.
For more information, go to
www.crawfordco.com/murals or call Cuba's Chamber
of Commerce toll-free at 1-877-212-8429.


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Benefit World Famous Neutrals Kits
- Loving my re-organized makeup room. Thank you to Mom for helping me! :)
- Planning to do Beauty Broadcast Live again tomorrow at 9am central on BlogTV! Thinking about periodically adding a Saturday show to the schedule, but I'll keep you posted!
- I need to re-do my nails big time.
- Time for some leftover chili! Have a good night!


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French bikini
Due to the popularity of the original bikini, the French had to come up with a new version which they could proudly call their own. Unfortunately, completely sane scientists were involved to create the french bikini, which was to be made entirely of cheese.
The French bikini still remained a two-piece outfit, but instead of the original being made from cloth material and cord, the new improved French bikini was created from various types of French cheeses. Various prototypes were made from Roquefort, Port-Salut and Emmental but it was legislated by the French Parliament that Camembert and Brie be used. It was stated that these two selections would be chosen because of their "aesthetic qualities of covering the female body".
Strict controls[edit]
Determined not to see the icon of the french bikini disappear like the original, the French Parliment also legislated several strict conditions attatched the wearing of the french bikini.
- The french bikini is not to be manufactured, purchased or worn outside of France.
- The french bikini is not to be worn by non-French women or men, even if holidaying in France.
- The french bikini is not to be eaten, licked or nibbled by the wearer or another person, whilst still being worn.
- Failure to adhere to the above legislation will cause Sudden Instant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
- Methods of death will vary, anywhere from the guillotine to cheese asphyxiation.
World reaction[edit]
Of course, the rest of the world wanted to wear this marvel of french invention and despite the strict controls placed, thousands flocked to France to strut their stuff with the cheesy wares. After three days the death toll was 1,207 - mostly American and Lithuanian women. Some Bat Fuck Insane scientists from around the world created different cheesy bikinis.
British bikini[edit]
The British bikini wasn't a great hit in England as the colour of Cheddar blended in with the pasty-white colour of British female skin.
Swiss bikini[edit]
On the contrary, the Swiss bikini became almost as popular as the French bikini, because of the use of Swiss cheese. The "see-through holes" property of Swiss cheese deemed it a very risqué choice by the United Nations, but the Swiss bikini has become the essential tool used today in the adult entertainment industry.
See also[edit]
|Chicken Soup for the Eyes
|Asparagus | Awesomesauce | Baby food | Bacon| Boogers | Butter | Cafeteria food | Cake | Caviar | Cheese | Chicken | Chicken 2.0 | Codpiece | Corn | Cornbread | Cornflakes | Crunchy Beaver with Pine Gum Coulis | Fantastik flavored hallucinogenic ham with Uranium seasoning | French bikinis | Fried Chicken | Fudge | Goa Tse | Ice Cream | Hot Dog | Knuckle sandwich | Krispy Kreme | Meatloaf | Sacred Mushrooms | Mangos | Penis | Pie | Pills | Pudding | Orange sherbet | Pease pudding | Rice Pudding | Rocky Mountain Oysters | Sauce | Spam | Sunny D | Taco Hell | Turd burgers


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How to shop for a swimming pool slide
A swimming pool slide is an important pool element that provides great entertainment, relaxation and a lot of fun for both children and adults. Pool slides can be essential for commercial swimming pools that are installed in different high-end facilities such as hotels, resorts, fitness clubs, water parks and more. Nowadays, though, pool slides are popular in a residential setting as they add both aesthetical and commercial value to ordinary backyards. Modern pool slides are durable, reliable, safe and manageable even for very small children. In addition, they take not much area and are beneficial both for leisure and health.
There are a variety of pool slides available on the market today, differing in color and size. There are slides that are designed for in ground and above ground swimming pools, for very young children and for teenagers and adults. Pool slides differ by shape, such as straight, g-force, typhoon, x-stream, cyclone, turbo twister, water park style; left-curved or right-curved and by material such as made of fiberglass, plastic, concrete and inflatable pool slides.
Inflatable or blow-up slides are cheap, small and easy to install swimming pool elements, that are ideal for young children as they are not tall, soft and ensure cushioning against injuries. They are usually designed as a castle or cottage and have activity toys enclosed such as rubber ducts and so on. Other types of slides can deteriorate in poor weather while inflatable ones are easy to dissemble, it doesn't take much place to store them and they are pretty durable.
Fiberglass pool slides are gentle on the skin; they require minimum maintenance and they are the healthiest option. Fiberglass is a very strong material; its surface is the most durable and never needs replacing. At the same time, fiberglass slides are the most colorful and good-looking slides among the permanent ones.
Plastic slides are usually confused with fiberglass accessories, but they are not so stable, durable and not so expensive. They are made from ultraviolet-protected plastic and designed for exposure to the sun and heavy-duty wear.
Concrete slides are durable pool elements, not expensive and beautiful backyard elements. At the same time, they can be not smooth enough, look not modern enough and they can be never moved or redesigned.
Regardless of what type, shape, color or application of a swimming pool slide you prefer, it should be installed firmly so that you can ensure the safety of the swimmers. It is not recommended to leave your children alone while they are using the slide, when they are swimming or even if they are just hanging out around the pool.


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